During development and production of devices, for example integrated circuits, systems or other semiconductor devices, extensive tests are performed to ensure that the device meets desired specifications. For example, a semiconductor device may be tested using simulations prior to actually implementing the semiconductor device, and later in the development process, for example prototypes, i.e. actual implementations of the semiconductor device, may be tested using corresponding test equipment.
For many of such tests, so-called test stimuli are needed, which correspond to signals, e.g. transient signals, or other parameters applied to the semiconductor device to test the behaviour of the semiconductor device, for example by simulation or in reality. Conventionally, such test stimuli may be generated based on a simple specification of the semiconductor device. Such a simple specification may for example define maximum and/or minimum operation parameters for the semiconductor device, like minimum and/or maximum currents, minimum and/or maximum temperatures, voltage ranges or any other parameters the semiconductor device may be exposed to during its intended use.
However, tests based simply on maximum and/or minimum values of a parameter may lead to device designs which are unnecessarily large in some circumstances. For example, when a specified maximum temperature for a device is 150° C., the device design using the above approach may lead to a semiconductor device which may be able to operate at 150° C. for a long time. On the other hand, in an actual use of the device in some applications, the temperature may reach for example 150° C. only sometimes for very short periods of time and may be much lower the rest of the time. For such an application scenario, a less temperature-robust design than for an operation which is permanently at a high temperature, may be sufficient.